Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Entasis Ersatz




This is probably the most obscure priming possible in any group, which is what makes it so interesting.
The above post is a hilariously obscure rant on religious fanaticism written by one of the members of the galeej gang. So obscure were some of the words used, and so comically basic the grammar in which the post was otherwise written, that the words became famous, so much so that any new post is simply announced by 'its entasis time'
One word that became particularly famous was entasis, and also spawned its own short lived spin off...entasig. Entasis is apparently a convexity built into towers in order to correct for the distortion of sight when people look from the ground.
But Arun Bharadwaj, the writer of this post, used it in an abstract sense in a much quoted line..."When Yugoslavia was dismembered, religious faith was rather an entasis ersatz to the concavity among the population which existed" meaning that religious faith was a rather false or fraudulent thing to fill the void left by the Yugoslavian people's troubles.
Since then, his blog, named Ersatz, has been renamed Entasis Ersatz in the minds of followers.
Again, the number of people who are aware of this runs into hundreds. Arun Bharadwaj's posts are awaited with eager anticipation, people look for the same hilariously exaggerated use of language.
What is remarkable here is that entasis no longer stands for a convexity. It is about AB's blog. In the restricted sense, and in the small set of English words adopted by the Galeej Gang, Entasis stands out as the only one which is remarkable for its obscurity. Its meaning, in Galeej speak, is absurdly simple: it signals anything to do with AB's blog.


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